


August 1995

by helsinkibaby



Series: The Pieces of my Life [7]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg and Ellie spend the summer in San Francisco</p>
            </blockquote>





	August 1995

It is August 1995, and Greg feels like he has the world at his feet. His summer job, a gofer at the San Francisco crime lab is going well; the work is challenging, something he’s good at, something he enjoys. Wonder of wonders, his boss seems to like him as well, or at least his work, and he’s been muttering something about letting Greg intern there next semester, something that would look very good to the college and even better on his résumé. He is living in San Francisco for the summer, with his Uncle Mike, Mom’s kid brother, the cool one whose idea of keeping an eye on Greg is letting him have all the freedom he wants, as long as he calls if he’s going to be out late, or leaves a message on the giant corkboard on the kitchen wall. They’ve agreed never to mention this to Greg’s mother, who would undoubtedly kill them both, and even Mike seemed to be a little hesitant when laying out the rules, but Greg swore up and down that Mike could trust him, and so far he’s kept his word.

He’s had to, because he knows what’s at stake, and today is the day that he gets his reward for being all grown-up and responsible for the last number of weeks.

Because today is the day that his girlfriend is coming into town, and he can’t wait to see her.

He was lucky enough to have work and family in San Francisco, but she had to go back to New Hampshire, where she’s been working in the hospital with her mom and trying to avoid her dad. They’ve talked to one another nearly every other day, and their phone bills are going to be nothing short of horrific, but Greg knows that it’s not enough for either of them. That’s why he invited her out here, and it’s not purely for amorous reasons, as she teased him, or as Mike wondered. Not that it’s not on Greg’s mind, but it’s far from the main reason.

The main reason is that this summer is the longest he’s gone without seeing her since they first met, and he doesn’t like it one little bit. He’s missing her, more than he thought it possible to miss anyone, and all he wants is to see her face, talk to her, hold her hand. Right here, right now, that would be enough for him, though he knows that no-one believes that. He also doesn’t care, especially not now, when he’s standing in the airport arrivals hall, waiting for her to appear. She’s staying for a week, and he’s got everything planned, has even inveigled his boss into giving him the week off, just so he doesn’t have to spend a second away from her.

When the little computer screens tell him that her plane has touched down, he moves closer to the barrier, closer to the door, so that he will be able to see her the instant he appears. Some dim little part of his mind that’s capable of rational thought realises that he’s literally bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in anticipation, and there’s a little voice in the back of his mind that sounds very like John that’s making fun of him, but he doesn’t care about that either.

Because she’s just walked right into his field of vision, and he swears she looks better than he remembers. Her long brown hair is tied back in a loose ponytail that straight away has his fingers itching to set it free, and she’s wearing a pale blue t-shirt and jeans, a jacket over one arm, carries a suitcase in the other. She doesn’t look any older than she did the first day he met her, almost a year ago now; which is to say that she still looks younger than the college student she really is. But she looks pretty damn close to perfect for him, and he finds himself calling out her name, just in case she missed him, not able to keep still and grinning like an idiot.

He’s always thought she was gorgeous, thought so when he first saw her today. But when she looks over at him, when she smiles, the effect is almost enough to knock him off his feet. She’s got a hell of a smile he’s found, and she doesn’t use it nearly enough, though he takes great delight in making her smile any and every chance he gets. He’s not doing anything special now though, unless you count moving towards her, and when they’re literally arms’ length away from one another, she drops jacket and suitcase both, and fairly throws herself into his arms. He was ready for it though, lifting her off her feet, spinning her around and around. He delights in hearing her laughter in his ears, because it sounds so much better in person than over the phone, and when he sets her down again, he’d swear that the rest of the terminal has simply faded away into nothingness. It might as well have, because all he can see is her, and all either of them can do for a long moment is smile at one another.

Characteristically enough, he’s the first to speak. “Man, have I missed you.”

It’s not the most eloquent of phrases, nor is it at all romantic, but she seems to like it well enough, grinning up at him. “Me too,” she says simply, and that’s all he gives her a chance to say before he leans forwards, pressing his lips to hers.

It’s a quick kiss, purposely so, because he doesn’t think that throwing her to the ground and kissing her the way he really wants to would be approved of by anyone who knows them, or anyone who doesn’t for that matter. It’s the sensible thing to do, but he knows it’s not what she’s expecting, her slight look of surprise being more than enough to clue him in on that. Any confusion vanishes when one hand slides down, his fingers entwining with hers, while his other moves to grab her suitcase. “Let’s get you home,” is all he says, and that’s all she needs to hear to be beaming again.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

>*<*>*<

He drives her back to Mike’s place, for once thankful that he’s going to be on bathroom duty for the rest of his stay with his uncle, because that was the price Mike exacted from him as payment for lending him his car that day. She teases him that she could get used to being chauffeured around like his; he counters with the fact that she might as well enjoy it, because she’s going to be walking for the rest of the week. That’s when Ellie pouts at him, runs her finger up his arm, rather suggestively he thinks, and he damn near crashes the car. He gives her a look that’s part annoyance, part save it for later, and she just gives him that little grin of hers, not the full wattage smile he saw at the airport, but that devilish little smirk that’s only ever for his eyes.

It never fails to make him want to grab her and never let her go, and he knows then and there that it’s going to be a long trip home.

It’s made longer by the fact that he really does take the long way home, the better to show her some of the sights of the city, so by the time they get home, they’re both starving. He does the gentlemanly thing, shows her to her room, which is really his room for the summer, but he’s going to sleep on the couch while she’s here, and he leaves her there to freshen up while he goes to take care of food.

When she emerges a few minutes later, having washed up and changed her clothes, his idea of culinary expertise - take-out pizza and Diet Coke – has arrived, and when he apologises for not having anything better prepared, she orders him not to worry about it, pulling up a chair at the kitchen table, digging into the pizza like she hasn’t seen food for a month. He must look surprised at her reaction, because she giggles, explains to him somewhat sheepishly that her mother has a strict ban on junk food in the house, one that her father tries to flout at every opportunity. “But she’s been cracking down this summer,” she finishes, before taking another huge bite out of her pizza slice, and he lifts an eyebrow, regards her curiously.

“So that’s why you wanted to come out here,” he teases. “You only want me for my junk food.”

Ellie looks at the pizza box on the table, then back to him, her face perfectly impassive. “Yep,” is all she says, and he can’t help himself; he bursts out laughing.

>*<*>*<

When they’re done eating, he takes her out for a walk. He knows that this is yet another surprise for her, because she can’t hide anything from him, not with those expressive eyes of hers. He’s pretty sure she wanted to curl up on the couch with him and forget the rest of the world exists, which is pretty high on his to-do list as well. There’s just one thing that’s higher.

Which is why he fairly drags her along to their destination, leading the way with long strides as she tries to keep up with him. “Would you please tell me where we’re going?” she laughs as they get near it, and because they’re near it, this time, he deigns to answer her.

“Almost there,” he tells her. “Just a little more.”

Ellie’s regarding him suspiciously, is looking up at the sky, at the position of the sun, and he remembers too late that her father fancies himself as a bit of an outdoorsman, used to love to take the whole family camping, then give wilderness survival lectures around the campfire. “Are we just going in a circle?” she asks, and he schools his features into passivity, because they more or less are.

“Kind of,” is all he will admit to her. “I’m more taking you along the back roads.”

“But we’re going to end up on the same street as your uncle’s house, right?”

“No.” That much surprises her. “But we are going to be on the next street over.”

She shakes her head, completely mystified, which, after all, is exactly the way that Greg wanted her. “Greg, what-?”

But that’s as far as she gets because he turns around, gives her his biggest grin. “We’re here,” he announces. “You just need to do one thing.” Her only response is to cross her arms over her chest, one hip thrust out expectantly, and if he looked down, he’d bet that she’d be tapping her foot. “Close your eyes,” he tells her, but she opens them wide instead.

“Greg…” Her tone is one of warning, and he steps forward at his most beseechingly charming, taking her hands in his, holding them up between them.

“Ellie, I promise, this is worth it,” he tells her. “Just trust me.”

She holds his gaze for a moment, before sighing, rolling her eyes. “OK, ok, I trust you,” she says, closing her eyes. “What do I do now?”

“Just trust me a little bit more,” he says, coming around behind her, putting his hands over her eyes. At her little gasp, he says, “It’s ok… you just need to take a couple steps forward… that’s right…” He guides her completely, not loosening his grasp over her eyes, and he can feel her shoulders shaking with laughter. At least, he hopes it’s laughter. “OK… stop here,” he tells her after a couple more steps. “Don’t open your eyes.”

He takes his hands away, moves to stand beside her as she’s saying, “Well, when can I open my eyes?”

“Now,” he says, not taking his eyes off her face as she looks, first at him, then at the view before her. The street is running downhill, as so many of San Francisco’s streets do, and while it’s not one of the steepest streets by a long shot, it’s made remarkable by the series of S-shaped curves that mark it out, emphasised by the greenery of the hedgerows, the carefully-maintained gardens. She laughs, the sound emerging in a kind of shocked little gasp, her hands going to her mouth. “Lombard Street,” he tells her, though he knows that she knows what she’s looking at, knows equally well that it’s a sight that she’s always wanted to see, though she can’t explain why. Some people when they go to San Francisco wanted to see cable cars, others the Golden Gate Bridge. For Ellie, it had always been Lombard Street. “The crookedest street in the world.”

She turns to him, eyes shining. “You never told me your uncle lived on Lombard Street,” she tells him, and he shrugs.

“Technically, it’s just off Lombard,” he objects. “Besides, I wanted to see the look on your face when you saw it like this.”

She rolls her eyes, but she is beaming, and she turns her gaze back to the street, but only for a moment. Then she’s looking back at him, slipping her arms around his waist, smiling up at him. “Have I told you how much I missed you?” she wonders, and he shrugs as he slides his arms around her.

“Yeah,” he says, lowering his face to hers. “But I could stand to hear it again.”

Her lips meet his halfway, and this time, the kiss is nothing like the airport. This kiss is passionate, and explosive, and all those other things that they’ve been feeling since this all began on a beach in Florida. This time, when he pulls away, he is literally breathless, and when thought returns to his mind, the first one that lodges there is that it’s going to be a long week sleeping on the couch.

>*<*>*<

As it happens, the week isn’t nearly as long as Greg thought it was going to be. Oh, it might be hard every night to watch Ellie walk into the bedroom while he beds down on the couch, but aside from that, the days seem to literally fly by. They go out to dinner with Mike on her first night there, his uncle insisting on treating the two of them, and to Greg’s great delight, the two of them get along well. Ellie did meet his parents when they picked him up at Stanford to go home for summer break, but that was only a brief encounter. This is her first protracted exposure to any of his family, and he knew that she was nervous about it, hid his own nerves behind his customary over-cheerfulness. All their fears seem to be coming to naught however, and he’s sure that when his mom asks Mike about Ellie, as she no doubt will, the report will be a good one.

For the rest of the week, they busy themselves with either doing the typical tourist things or doing nothing at all, lying stretched out on the grass in various parks, watching the rest of the world go by without them. He introduces her to some people that he’s been working with all summer, and she surprises him by proving to be deadly accurate when a group of them go bowling. She’s less adept at pool he discovers, though he enjoys the close proximity involved in trying to teach her, and he has a vague suspicion in his mind that she’s not really as bad as she’s supposed to be, that she’s just pretending to avail of that same proximity, not that he’s going to call her on that.

But the highlight comes when they go to the Pekinpah concert, where they dance the night away, and Greg feels like life is perfect, listening to the music of one of his favourite bands, playing just feet away, with Ellie in his arms.

He thinks life can’t get any better, but he is proven wrong later that night.

He calls out Mike’s name when they get home, because his uncle is as much a night owl as he is, and there’s no way he’d be in bed so early. Silence greets them though, and every light in the house is off, and he finds himself glancing at Ellie, vaguely confused. “Doesn’t look like he’s home,” he says needlessly, a look at the board in the kitchen showing no note from Mike to say where he is.

“Check the machine,” Ellie suggests, pointing at the flashing red display, showing that they have three messages. Taking her at her word, Greg presses the button, listens to one of Mike’s friends calling about plans for the weekend, listens to his mother calling to check in on the two of them. The third message, however, has Mike’s voice filling the room, sounding more stressed and harried than Greg can ever remember his uncle sounding.

“Greg, it’s Mike. I’m just calling to let you know that the bottom’s dropped out of this proposal we’re working on, and we have to rework most of it… looks like it’s gonna be an all-nighter, so don’t wait up, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

With that, the machine beeps, and all around Greg is silence, the only sound he can hear the pounding of his heart. Because that message means something that has never happened to him and Ellie before since they’ve been dating; it means that they will be here, in this house, alone, all night.

Which isn’t something that he would normally have a problem with per se. After all, Greg’s hardly lived a monk-like existence at Stanford, nor even before then. There have been the problems of parents and chaperones and room-mates to overcome, but they’ve always been overcome, or at least, they always had been. But with Ellie, things have been different, because he’s been very aware that her experience with guys was limited, to say the least, and he’s never wanted to rush her, make her uncomfortable, has never treated her like any of the other girls that he’s been involved with. Hence, the walking her to her dorm room door, but never going in, his sleeping on the couch all this week. It’s not the choice that he personally would make, but he’s doing it for Ellie, so he perseveres.

The last thing that he wants is for her to think that just because his uncle’s not coming home, just because they have the house to themselves, that he expects her to sleep with him. The fact of the matter is though, he’s a red-blooded, college-aged male, who is madly in love with his girlfriend, and that was the first place that his mind headed on hearing that message. He’s very afraid that that will show in his face, so he stares at the answering machine for what seems like a very long time, running the periodic table of elements through his head in an effort to stave off other, more amorous, images.

It works for about a second, because he gets only as far as sodium before Ellie’s hand slides into his, squeezes gently, and the gesture makes him turn his head to look at her. He sees something in her eyes that he’s never seen in there before, and it makes him swallow hard, grinning at her. “Wow, that’s a bummer,” he says, and even he can hear the insincerity in his voice. Ellie doesn’t seem upset though, just smiles, and while that would normally make Greg relax, now it has the opposite effect. To cover it up, he tries to step away from her, towards the kitchen, talking all the while. “You want something to drink?” he offers. “We still have some hot chocolate I think…”

“Greg.” He’s not sure if it’s her voice that stops him, or the fact that she hasn’t let go of his hand, but he stops either way, turns ever so slowly to look at her. That look is still in her eyes, that small little smile, and she steps close to him, laying her free hand over his chest. He seems to be having trouble speaking, but that’s ok, because she’s not, tilting her head to one side as she looks at him. “What if I don’t want something to drink?” she asks, not the slightest tremor of doubt in her voice. “What if I can think of other things to do?”

There can be no doubt in Greg’s mind as to her meaning, not when she’s looking at him like that, and he swallows hard again, willing himself not to simply sweep her up in his arms and carry her to the bedroom. “Ellie…” is all he can say, all she lets him say.

“Greg.” Her voice is as firm as ever he’s heard it, and his hand reaches up of its own accord, brushing back her hair, lingering there. She reaches up, covers it with her own, all the while, her eyes never leaving his. “This is what I want.”

Time seems to be suspended around them, and Greg draws in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “Are you sure?” he asks her, hardly able to believe that he is, in fact, asking the question, but knowing that it has to be asked.

Before she answers, Ellie, for the first time in this whole conversation, breaks eye contact with him, looking off to one side. It only lasts for a minute, and were it anyone else, Greg would have taken that as a no, or at least as a hesitation. But a split second after her eyes leave his, the corners of Ellie’s lips turn up in a smile and Greg recognises the gesture for what it is; that little subconscious thing that Ellie does when she’s thought about something and made up her mind to do it, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. So he barely needs to hear her words, is already smiling when she says, “Yes. I’m sure.”

She leans over then, brushes her lips over his, probably intending it to be a chaste kiss, but Greg has other ideas, pulling her tight against him and deepening the kiss. She responds by slipping her arms around his waist, and when he breaks the kiss, taking her hand in his and leading her to the bedroom, there is no further need for words.

>*<*>*<

“You all right?”

He asks the question much later, when they are curled up against one another, bodies entwined, her head on his shoulder, one of her arms across his chest. One of his hands traces patterns on that arm, the other is curled around her shoulders, reaching up to play aimlessly with the ends of her hair. Her eyes are closed, but at his question, they open, and she smiles up at him, a slow smile as she stretches languorously against him. “I’m fine,” she tells him, and looking at her, he believes her. “You, on the other hand,” she decides, propping herself up to press a kiss to his cheek, “Look decidedly perplexed.”

He smiles, chuckles slightly, because the last thing he is is perplexed; in fact, he can’t remember a time that he’s felt more relaxed, or indeed, more at rights with the world. “Can’t imagine why,” he tells her, and she chuckles too, lying back down. He moves his hand down her arm, covers hers with his, twining their fingers together, raising them to his lips for a second. “I’m just… I just don’t want you thinking that I took advantage of you…”

He stops talking when that pronouncement elicits a snort of laughter from her, one that turns into peals of giggles. “And there I was,” she forces out between them, “Afraid that you were going to think that I’d thrown myself at you.”

“Which you did,” he points out, and she looks up at him, shrugging one shoulder, looking as unconcerned as it’s possible for a person to look.

“Which I did,” she agrees happily. “Are you sorry?”

His arm tightens around her shoulders, and he kisses the top of her head. “Never.” There’s a pause, as he tries to decide whether to ask the question, then asks it anyway. “What about you? Any regrets?”

To his paranoid mind, it takes her forever to reply; in reality, it’s only as long as it takes for her to raise herself up again, to press her lips against his quickly. “Not one,” she tells him, certainty ringing in her tone, and then she kisses him again, and again, and this time when he rolls her over onto her back, he doesn’t ask any questions, just loves her until they fall asleep in one another’s arms.


End file.
